


Ti kokkinomálli

by silveradept



Category: RWBY
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Inner Dialogue, Past Character Death, Post-Episode s06e09: Lost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:54:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26298229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/pseuds/silveradept
Summary: Jaune in Argus, his training routine, and missing Pyrrha.
Relationships: Jaune Arc/Pyrrha Nikos
Kudos: 5
Collections: Poetry Fiction 2019





	Ti kokkinomálli

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Poetry Fiction Retrospective Challenge on the following fragment, from Buffaloes, by Tishani Doshi:
> 
> Think of beginnings:  
> amusement parks at dawn,  
> pianos, bedrooms, gods.

It's harder to find a place to practice in Argus.

There are gyms and arenas full of people who would probably be happy to spar with any of them, even though they're still technically students. There's a lot of mystique associated with having been a Beacon student, and more than a few rumors have gone around about the battle skills of the survivors. Jaune is thankful that the rumors never fully describe what RWBY and...whatever the name of his team is now.

Which is one of the many problems he's ignoring with his team. They tried to figure out something while Ruby was on loan from her own team, and nothing sounded right. Now, they're back to having a hole where there should be someone, but he can't really bring himself to think about putting something there. If they fill the last spot, they're not JNPR any more, but some other team. He doesn't want to let go of even one memory of her.

He's glad that Nora and Ren have stabilized their relationship, and that they've both taken well to Oscar. They'll protect him better than Jaune can. But teams are supposed to be four, and Jaune knows how much he's unbalanced without her. He's supposed to be a leader, and leaders don't threaten children, even if they're also the reincarnation of a centuries-old wizard who has hidden more secrets from everybody than he's given up. She's not there to calm him down, to get him set back on balance when he careens too far off toward one edge.

The irony isn't lost on him, how good she was at keeping everyone else even when she was being crushed by the effort of doing it, and the weight of expectations placed upon her.

The closest park to where they're staying has her, sculpted immaculately in bronze. It's wrong, though. She was never static like that, holding her shield and looking down. It would have been a lot more work to cast a statue of her the way she was, hair trailing behind her as she went on to the next thing, whatever that was for her, but it would have been more accurate. The statue makes her look passive, when she was anything but. 

He wants Argus to see her as she was when she was alive, teaching, making friends, instead of as the unattainable invincible hero, three steps ahead of every opponent. He keeps trying to practice to her voice, in her presence, but it's harder to find a time where nobody is there, when nobody will ask him about what he knew about her, will demand a story of Pyrrha Nikos, four-time Mistral regional champion and what it was like to train under her.

He's stopped telling them he trained _with_ her, because they never saw her as anything but a statue, anyway.

He wants to tell them about the dance, how he had believed she was a statue, too, and then he'd finally seen _her_ , just long enough, it seems, for them to share a dance, a thought, a kiss. Maybe a relationship. But they'd focus on the wrong dress.

Argus would have thrown her a party if she came back. Everything they're trying to do in Argus might have been so much easier with her. And she would have done it all, traded on her reputation to smooth their pathway through to Atlas. Whatever the cost might have been to her, she would have borne it without complaining, even in private. 

Little adjustments so that attacks swing wide, or glance off instead of striking true. A pull here, a push there, enough to make an opening, but never enough to be seen doing it, so that it all looked effortless.

He doesn't have her finesse. He doesn't have her touch. He can't really do anything alone - even his Semblance is telling him he needs others to succeed.

He wanted her to show him around, to tell him about all the things she did when she was a child here, what happened at Sanctum. Maybe even to show him around her house. He wants to look with fresh eyes at things she has seen a thousand times.

He wants to talk about the food fight, how everything escalated between blinks. But if he tells that story, they'll spend more time asking about tactical decisions and how awesome it must have looked to see her unleash her true potential. Or they'd be shocked that Pyrrha Nikos lost a battle, and against a wisp of a girl, promoted beyond her age, and would look to blame someone for why she lost, and he knew who would be the easiest target for _that_.

What he remembers the most about it is the smile he saw on her face right before she unleashed the blitz of soda against team RWBY. One of the few times where it looked like she was just _enjoying_ it, without having to worry about how it would look to anyone else. It was the only time he was certain she was having fun.

He wanted to see her relax, really, truly, relax and be Pyrrha. Then again, maybe Argus would be the last place she could relax. Maybe they'd end up spending their days with Saphron anyway, just to get away from the pressure. To sleep in a little, to sneak away and enjoy a festival without fighting in it. To listen to Weiss play piano, and maybe even sing a little, without letting her know she had an audience.

They built her a statue. She was a legend before, now she's a goddess. He'll never be as good as she was. He may never be anything more than a brick with a ridiculous amount of Aura in battle, but he's going to be the best damn brick that he can become, one session at a time. He's going to show them what she forged.

Shield up. 

Front foot forward.

Strike.

Again.

And again.

**Author's Note:**

> The title's could use some help. If there's someone who could render "To the red-haired one" or "to the most flame-haired" with the same structure as the inscription on the Apple of Discord, that is what I was trying to get at with the title, and help would be appreciated.


End file.
